Electrical power substations or power distribution stations include switchyard equipment or gear, such as circuit breakers, transformers, capacitor banks, and the like which help deliver electrical power. The switchyard equipment must be regularly tested and maintained to minimize the likelihood of a failure during normal operation. Preventive maintenance and replacement schedules are typically established for such equipment, and periodic testing may be performed to detect potential problems. Examples of monitoring systems for switchyard equipment are described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,270,658 (Epstein), U.S. Pat. No. 5,384,678 (Ebersohl et al.) and U.S. Pat. No. 5,179,376 (Pomatto)
Current systems for monitoring switchyard equipment are inefficient, especially because the apparatus used to collect and process data from the equipment are not fully integrated into a single communications network. Also, in current systems, data flows from monitoring/testing devices connected to the switchyard equipment to a central location. Previously collected data stored in the central location cannot be returned to the local equipment site if a maintenance technician needs to review such data at the site. Modems, telephone lines or wireless communications means must be used to communicate the data, thereby necessitating the maintenance of a separate communications network.
Current systems for monitoring switchyard equipment are not capable of performing comprehensive tests of certain switchyard equipment, such as circuit breakers, without using auxiliary test equipment. For example, current monitoring systems do not have a built-in excitation voltage generator for use in testing a plural phase circuit breaker to obtain breaker response time. Current systems are also not capable of retrieving previous test data for on-site analysis of current and previous test data.
Accordingly, there is still a need for a switchyard equipment monitoring system which does not require maintenance of a separate communications network between the equipment and a remote data collection location, which can bidirectionally communicate data between monitoring devices connected to the equipment and the remote data collection location, which collects and organizes the data in a versatile database format, and which allows the data to be manipulated at the equipment, as well as at the remote data collection location, and which allows comprehensive tests to be performed on the equipment without the use of auxiliary test equipment. The present invention fills these needs.